Traffic cameras, legal rules, and accusers

A few days ago, I watched Gone Girl on TV, a story about mounting evidence against an innocent person. And then, I looked at an article about challenging a traffic camera citation (in the US). The link between the two stories is evidence, of course.

Traffic camera evidence incriminates a car, not a driver. The paper, written by a law professor, is interesting because it shows that the current processes around such evidence are not well covered by law (at least by U.S. law). When reading this paper, it becomes obvious that a “normal” citizen (i.e., not a law professor) would have great difficulties challenging the traffic camera evidence.

Of course, this becomes scary when we add to the mix the gazillions devices that are currently spying or reporting on us. Google Maps tells us that Bob’s phone was around here at 10:33, Bob’s alarm system tells us that his phone or his badge was used to turn off the alarm at 10:36 exactly, Bob’s security camera recorded something at 10:39 exactly, Bob’s fitness sensor tells us he ran between 10:43 and 10:47. I am not sure that police would be able to get all this data, but I am quite certain that they will be able to get some in the very near future.

And I am also quite certain that most of these devices are hackable, clonable, or that cybercriminals could misuse them to plant digital evidence against many people (especially someone sleeping alone at home). Not sure that this will get anywhere, because there are ways to make a lot of money misusing connected stuff without doing anything that sophisticated.

Yet, the Gone Girl story reminds us that some people are highly motivated to do such things, and most likely ready to pay good money for it. I am really wondering how the legal system will deal with the flow of cyberevidence and other IoT data, and how they will combine it with the possibility that most systems collecting this data are fully automated (no real witnesses), and subject to many hacks. It will be interesting to follow how this evidence will be trusted in courts, compared to traditional forensic evidence like fingerprints, DNA, and other things who can also be planted.

We are moving into a post-truth world, not only in politics, and this lack of certitude will deeply impact our society.